Oldfield's try came 60 seconds after Manly half-back Daly Cherry-Evans had levelled the scores with an equally unlikely left-footed field goal from the right-footed kicker.

A field goal to half-back Wade Graham right on half-time looked like being the difference as the Sharks battled hard in a physical contest in front of 15,133 people.

Cronulla skipped out to a 13-0 lead thanks to tries to winger Matthew Wright and hooker Stuart Flanagan and looked to be heading for a comfortable victory before the visitors started to mount a comeback in the 61st minute when Kieran Foran pounced on an Oldfield kick.

Oldfield himself had scooped up a scrappy grubber from Glenn Stewart as the Sea Eagles edged their way back into the game.

Six minutes later, on the back of four straight penalties, Manly crossed again - this time through burly prop George Rose who crashed over from five metres out, cutting the lead to just one.

Kade Snowden, a likely starter in the New South Wales front row this year, had a monster of a game and appeared to have done enough for a Cronulla victory after he layed on both Sharks tries and got through a mountain of work in both attack and defence.

Snowden threw the last pass for Wright's try which opened the scoring in the first half, and he was involved again early in the second half as he brushed through some soft defence to set up hooker Stuart Flanagan.

Earlier, Manly had a try denied in the eighth minute when centre Steve Matai, playing his first match of the season after serving a seven-game suspension, could not cleanly gather a Foran cross-field kick.